Puja is not simply some form of meditation
but the most sacred yoga or means of union (yug) with the divine. This is called ‘deity yoga’. In the Hindu tradition it takes the form of
Murti Darshan. Murti Darshan means sitting in the presence of a deity
in the manifest form of an image or Murti of that deity - thereby coming
to see and feel, and to be seen and touched by it, to exchange looks with it
(the meaning of Darshan). Murti Darshan involves two principal
elements: Murti and Mantra. The Mantra are provided by
listening to the accompanying ‘hymns’ or Strotra, each of which both
is an extended Mantra and also contains specific words that are
Mantra in themselves - each with its own very specific message of
recognition:

1.Shiva Manas – recognising Shiva
as pure, formless awareness all around us in space.

2.Bhavanyastakam – recognising and
revering the great mother goddess or Mahadevi as the power of
manifesting all things that pervades and vibrates throughout space.

4.Atmastakam – recognising our
oneness with that self (Atman) and thus with Shiva.

5.Lingashtakam – recognising all the
colours, shapes, bodies, people and things around us - indeed everything in
the entire world - as a mere mark (Lingam) of the pure formless
awareness that is their source – Shiva – just like an ink mark on a
page.

6.Om Namah Shivayah – the
Mahramantram or Mantram of Shiva himself. OM -
Shiva meditating the deep inward source of all things in the primordial
vibration (OM) that is the Mother. NAMA - Shiva knowing his own name
and form - and the entire world of names and forms as a manifestation of the
Mother. SHIVAYA - Shiva knowing himself as that awareness which
transcends all names and forms, pervading all of space and time and
pervading also every body within it.

Glossary of Sanskrit terms:

Puja – sacred worship or awareness of the
Divine.

Shiva – that great god (Mahadeva)
which is nothing but pure awareness or ‘universal consciousness’
- infinite and absolute, together with it pure power of manifestation – the
great goddess or Mahadevi.

Yoga – a means to or state of union (yug)
with the divine

Aham – ‘I”

Atman – essential self

Murti – a statue or image of a divinity

Rupa / Arupa - form/ formelessness

Nama Rupa – the world of names and forms

Mantra – sacred syllables and words which
form both names and things

Murti Darshan – seeing and feeling a deity
through the presence of its Murti.

Stotram – meditative hymn to a deity
accompanying Puja

Shivoham – a Mantra meaning ‘Shiva is
my Self’

Shiva Lingam – a ‘mark’ or ‘symbol’ of Shiva

Lingam – ‘mark’ or ‘symbol’.

MEDITATION
1 - LISTENING TO THE LINGASTHAKAM

‘Puja’ is the
Hindu word for meditative ritual worship. In the Tantric tradition, however, to
worship a god is to become or identify with that god in its essence.
Listening to the song of the Shiva Lingam - the Lingasthakam - can be a
wonderfully effective means for experiencing the bliss of identification with
the pure awareness personified by Lord Shiva.

In the Hindu Shiva-ist or ‘Shaivist’ tradition the ‘Shiva Lingam’ is worshipped
as the chief symbol of Shiva. It usually takes the form of an abstractly phallic
or egg-shaped stone. In its dense and dark materiality the stone itself
symbolises the reality that all the most seemingly tangible and material of
things are just as much signs or symbols as words are – mere ‘marks’ of that
pure, immaterial awareness personified by Shiva.

The basic meaning of the word ‘Lingam’ is simply ‘mark’ or ‘sign’. Words are an
example of linga - being marks or signs on the otherwise blank,
two-dimensional space of a page. Yet behind them lies a wholly invisible and
immaterial world of meaning, one whose realty we can only confirm through
learning to read and through the experience of reading.
Similarly, behind all things lies a realm of pure, immaterial awareness whose
reality can only be confirmed and experienced through learning to meditate
them as linga – as sacred marks in three-dimensional space.

Clicking on the link below will allow you to hear the Lingasthakam
- the sacred song of the Shiva Lingam in its award-winning rendition by the
Singers of the Art of Living. Before you listen to the song, seat yourself
comfortably, with your back straight and your eyes open, using your whole body
to sense the clear space around you and around everything in your field of
vision.

As the song plays, listen out for and attend to each utterance of the simple
word ‘lingam’ as a
mantra in itself, a thought (man) that guards awareness (tra).
With each perfectly and delicately enunciated utterance of the word, turn your
awareness to any objects in your field of perception. At the same time hold to
the thought signified by the mantra - namely that every such ‘thing’ is a mere
sensory ‘mark’ or lingam of the realm of pure awareness personified by
Shiva. Sensing the clear space surrounding you and the things around you, feel
this space as identical with pure awareness itself and experience its bliss.

Few are aware of the
profoundly tantric significance of what is perhaps Richard Wagner’s greatest
aria – the ‘Liebestod’ or ‘Love-Death’ song called Mild und Leise (Mild
and Softly) that concludes his opera Tristan and Isolde. For the words of
this song can clearly be read and felt as an Ode to Shiva sung by Isolde,
as well as being a beautiful expression of Maithuna - the sensual bliss
of tantric soul-body union with Shiva, as personified by Tristan. The fact that
the words of the aria begin by speaking of the sweet opening, not of Tristan’s
eyes, but of the eye (Shiva’s ‘third eye’) and that they refer also to
the wafting fragrance (Rasa) and resonating sound (Om) of the
‘World-Breath’ (German Welt-Atem) is no less significant. For the German
word Atem (breath) from Atmen (to breathe) is cognate with the
Sanksrit Atman. The Atman is both the divine self of every being,
and its unity with that universal soul or ‘world soul’ which, surrounding and
pervading all things like air, lovingly breathesus and all living beings
into being – and that, like love, survives our death in the same way that our
soul-body or ‘bliss body’ does.

The song is sung as Isolde
gazes – not so much outwardly as inwardly – at the face and figure of Tristan.
Together with its orchestral accompaniment, it is a most powerful musical
expression of the experience of Shiva Puja as MurtiDarshan.
This means sitting with, meditating and marvelling at a perfectly sculpted human
‘idol’ or personification of Lord Shiva, and in this way coming to feel
the divine presence, qualities and gaze of Shiva himself emanating through it.
Thus it is that by listening to the words and music of the Liebestod aria
- no less than by listening to any Sanskrit or Hindi song to Shiva – we can
experience the bliss-essence of Shiva-Puja. For Wagner’s aria, though
written in German and translated in English below, constitutes perhaps one of
greatest Stotra or hymns to Shiva ever composed - influenced no doubt by
Wagner’s own awareness, gained from the German philosopher Schopenhauer, of the
profound significance of Indian thought.

You yourself can perform
Shiva Puja by simply following andfeeling Wagner’s ‘Ode to
Shiva’ - with the help of the text below and a video recording of the aria. It
may be helpful to read the text first, and then watch the video several times,
referring to the text when necessary. Then you will come to the point of being
able to watch and hear the aria sung with an awareness of the meaning of its
words. This will allow you to give your awareness up to the communicative voice
face of eyes of the singer herself - as she expresses, embodies and emanates
that meaning.

Mildly and softly,
how He smiles,
how The Eye
He opens sweetly ---
Do you see it, friends?
Don’t you see it?
Brighter and brighter
how He shines,
illuminated by stars
rises high?
Don’t you see it?
How His heart
boldly swells,
fully and nobly
wells in His breast?
How from His lips
delightfully, mildly,
sweet breath
softly wafts ---
Friends! Look!
Don’t you feel and see it?
Do I alone hear this melody,
which wonderfully and softly,
lamenting delight,
telling it all,
mildly reconciling
sounds out of Him,
penetrates me,
swings upwards,
sweetly resonating
rings around me?
Sounding more clearly,
wafting around me ---
Are these waves
of soft airs?
Are these billows
of delightful fragrances?
How they swell,
how they swirl around me,
Shall I breathe,
Shall I listen?
Shall I drink,
Immerse?
Sweetly in fragrances
Melt away?
In the billowing torrent,
in the resonating sound,
in the wafting Universe of the World-Breath ---
drown…
sink down…
unconsciously…
Supreme bliss!